Printed wiring circuit cards and connectors such as edge or Eurocard DIN connectors used to connect the circuitry and devices mounted on the cards to electronic apparatus as well known in the art. In many types of electronic apparatus the connectors are mounted on a panel commonly known as a backplane which accomplishes electrical interconnections between two or more circuit cards. The backplane is in turn secured within and in the back of an apparatus enclosure.
A typical backplane has a plurality of rows of connectors, each row containing at least two connectors with a space in between the connectors. To facilitate insertion and extraction of the circuit cards to and from the connectors, a card guide is mounted on the backplane in the space between each two connectors. Each guide extends from the backplane towards the front of the equipment and has a slot extending the length of the guide along each side adapted to accept an edge of a printed circuit card for guiding the card back towards the connector for insertion of the card into the connector. While this arrangement is completely satisfactory in that it is easy and convenient to insert and extract the cards with the aid of such card guides, cost of manufacturing of the card guides, as well as, cost of assembly of the card guides to the backplanes contributes significantly to the cost of the products using such arrangements. Additionally, when it is necessary to replace two single width cards located in the same row with one double width card, e.g. to improve interbus communications, the card guide located between the two connector positions has to be removed, which is a difficult and time consuming task espcially when the equipment is out in the field.